Extreme cliffhangers

Action not enough for new season finales

Does Dr. McDreamy practice CPR on Meredith in the supply closet on the season-ending "Grey's Anatomy" on Sunday and Monday?

Do Horatio and Marisol marry and live happily ever after on "CSI: Miami"? Conversely, who dies on the May 22 signoff?

And will we get any closer to understanding the "Lost" island during the May 24 two-hour season sendoff?

The action is TO BE CONTINUED as TV's hits wrap for the season. The month of May means cliffhangers, goosing ratings and giving viewers reason to return in the fall.

On the best series, the style of cliffhanger is evolving. It's less about physical jeopardy, more about psychological puzzles. Less "Who Shot J.R.?" and more "what metaphysical points are they making with the hatch?"

"The cliffhanger has graduated onto a more mature level," said Howard Gordon, writer-producer of "24." For him, "after all these years, it's about finding a new place to put Jack Bauer emotionally."

Tim Kring, writer-producer of NBC's "Crossing Jordan," agrees the Internet and other technology have spurred writing changes. "People want to go for a ride," Kring said. "It's a very modern style, shows like 'Lost.' "

"Literally," he said, "the TiVo is part of it, you get tiny clues laid in [by writers] to be watched several times."

TiVo moments are new, but the cliffhanger is as old as storytelling. But today's audiences seem to favor subtlety over traditional soap operatic gimmicks. Skip the random violence, give us a brain teaser.

In the 1970s and '80s, cliffhangers routinely set a house ablaze and let viewers guess who would emerge alive, an easy out for producers depending upon which actors demanded raises. The mass shooting at a "Dynasty" wedding party in Moldavia is a classic example.

In 2006, the challenge is to avoid cliches but keep the nail-biting.

On Fox's "Prison Break," every hour is designed as a cliffhanger. The writing challenge, according to writer-producer Nick Santora, is to respect audience intelligence and avoid getting out of the weekly conundrum "cheaply."

"If you look at the history of cliffhangers," Santora said, "go back to early film with shorts and serials before the main feature, it was always a car off a cliff or our hero in chains thrown in the ocean. It was this insane dramatic physical peril. What we've been doing on 'Prison Break' is basically trying to throw in emotional and psychological peril as well as physical danger."

In Santora's view, "it's much more interesting to have these cliffhanger moments where the audience isn't asking, 'how is he going to get out of this physical box,' but, 'how are our heroes going to get past this intellectual problem?' "

Santora won't say what happens in the "Break" finale on Monday or who isn't returning next season, but "some viewers may be shocked at who we lose."

MEMORABLE TV CLIFFHANGERS

CHEESIEST

"Batman"--The 1960s TV series famously ended each episode on a melodramatic cliffhanger with our heroes in jeopardy, narrated in vintage radio serial style. To be continued ... "Same Bat time, same Bat channel."

"Who Shot Mr. Burns?"--"The Simpsons" parodied "Dallas" at the close of the 1995 season. Spoiler alert: It was baby Maggie, who pulled the trigger by accident when Mr. Burns attempted to steal her candy.

NASTIEST

"Who's Cartman's Dad?"--The 1998 "South Park" season finale posed that question on an episode titled "Cartman's Mother is a Dirty Slut." According to DNA tests, nearly everyone was a suspect, including the 1989 Denver Broncos.

BEST IN RECENT HISTORY

Last spring's "Lost" finale was superb, setting up new questions about "the Others," what was in the hatch, how the island works and what's with the scary monster noises. Can they top themselves May 24?